Archive | November, 2010
Angry Birds and the Game Console Migration
If you’re the type that gets addicted to Angry Birds, prepare to be sucked in again. Apparently the mobile game is coming to the Wii, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.
Peter Vesterbacka, chief executive of Angry Birds developer Rovio, let the news out at the Virtual Goods Summit in London. He didn’t give any specifics on timing or extra features, but I’m not so much interested in the game itself as the trend that’s starting to take hold: The iPhone and Android are becoming proving grounds for downloadable console games.
eBay Does Boxes
12. November 2010
Over the past twelve years, I’ve sold thousands of dollars worth of stuff on eBay, and bought even more. And if I were to make a list of my biggest eBay annoyances, packaging would be high on the list. When items have arrived damaged, it’s usually been because the carton and/or the padding have been flimsy. And when I sell anything, I generally have to scout around for a decent box.
So I love the idea of an official, high-quality eBay box–which is what eBay is experimenting with right now. (I learned about them at an eBay press day which I’m attending today.)
Next Android Tablets: Magical!
12. November 2010
We all know that the iPad is a magical and revolutionary product at an incredible price–Apple keeps reminding us. According to Nvidia’s CEO, the next wave of Android tablets will get the magical part right, at least.
Hey, I See What They Mean About Apple Computers Being Pricey
12. November 2010
Christie's Apple-1
British auction house Christie’s has a precious heirloom up for bid: an original 1976 Apple-1, the first Apple computer. It says its estimated value is $161,600 -$242,400. That’s nearly ten times higher than the Apple-1 market value of $15,000-$25,000 I came up with when I wrote a story on collectible computers back in 2007. But this sounds like one of the best examples of the machine you’re likely to find, with the original box, cassette interface, documentation, BASIC on cassette, and a letter from Steve Jobs.
Christie’s listing says that the Apple-1 was a landmark personal computer because it was the first sold in assembled form rather than as a kit that required the buyer to solder components onto a motherboard. This seems inaccurate to me. For one thing, as this photo shows, Apple shipped the Apple-1 as a board without a case, keyboard, or video interface; it was still more of a nerdy hobbyist project more than anything else. (1977′s Apple II, Radio Shack’s TRS-80, and Commodore’s PET 2001, were the first major ready-to-use consumer PCs.) And the Apple-1 wasn’t the first non-kit computer, either: 1975′s MITS Altair was best known as a kit, but was also available in pre-assembled form.
No Sign of Decline for Call of Duty
12. November 2010
I’ve been trying to wrap my head around Call of Duty: Black Ops’ staggering sales, which outperformed every other game in the series on its first day and set records for the entertainment industry.
Activision’s claim of 5.6 million copies sold shouldn’t be a suprise, I suppose; last year, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 set entertainment records, with 4.7 million sales in the first day. Still, I didn’t expect Black Ops to come out on top. Treyarch, the studio that developed Black Ops and 2008′s Call of Duty: World at War, was living in the shadow of Infinity Ward, which developed both Modern Warfare games. Also, video game sales as a whole are on the decline this year, suggesting less fertile ground for a yearly refresh.
So why did Black Ops prevail? Simple: Call of Duty is the blockbuster first-person shooter that no other developer is making.
Coming on Monday: Facebook Does E-Mail?
12. November 2010
Monday morning at 10am PT, Facebook is holding a press event in San Francisco. TechCrunch’s Jason Kincaid reports that he hears the subject is a full-blown Facebook e-mail service that gives every member an @facebook.com account. Inside Facebook, they supposedly consider it to be a Gmail killer.
If that does turn out to be the news, it’ll confirm a months-old rumor about a Facebook project code-named “Titan.”
I’m always up for an interesting new twist on e-mail, and am intrigued by the idea of an ambitious, brand-new Webmail service–at this point, Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo Mail are all hobbled a bit by their sheer venerability and deep roots in traditional ways of doing things. But as I mentioned when “Titan” scuttlebutt first surfaced, I also like the fact that the Facebook inbox isn’t a traditional inbox. It’s simple, nearly spam-free, and focused on communications with people I already know and like.
If “Titan” is real, I hope it doesn’t mess up all the things about Facebook communications that don’t need messing with.
I’ll be at Monday’s event–I’ll tweet highlights as they happen, then report back here once we know the upshot.
Shhhh! CES 2011 Promises A Slew of New Announcements
11. November 2010
Normally the electronics industry is about as mum about what they’ve been up to as Lindsay Lohan on a Saturday night, but this year seems very top secret. We’ve already received 6 requests for non-disclosed products to be part of CES’s Last Gadget Standing. That means that we won’t be able to tell you anything about them until the bitter end… the day that CES opens. What to do? What to do? All I can say is … stay tuned from some very different kinds of gadget beasts at the show this year. Maybe they’ve all taken a class in Apple Mystique 101?
Google’s Image(s) Problem
11. November 2010
I’m nowhere near as cranky a geek as John C. Dvorak, and I don’t expect Google to collapse anytime in the next decade or three. But I do agree with him that the new Google Images (which I liked when I saw it demoed at Google) has issues, especially over slowpoke connections.
Streaming Music Now Neck-and-Neck With Downloads in U.S.
11. November 2010
Fascinating finding from the folks at the NPD Group: Americans now stream as much music as they download, at least on computers.
NPD (via Evolver.fm) says downloaded music accounted for 30 percent of listening on Macs and PCs in August, compared to 29 percent in March. Over the same period, streams increased from 25 percent to 29 percent of computer listening behavior. Judging from those statistics, streams could leap ahead of downloads next time NPD takes measurements.
Steve Ballmer is Right!
11. November 2010
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Steve Ballmer at the Windows Phone 7 launch on Monday, October 11th, 2010
Sad news: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has been found to be completely insane. The expert doing the declaring is my fictional friend Robert X. Cringely of InfoWorld, and he bases his diagnosis on a Ballmer quote in a recent CNNMoney.com story.
Ballmer is speaking of Windows Phone 7, which shipped internationally last month and hit the US this week:
“We’re early; there’s no question we’re early,” Ballmer said at Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference. “I think we kind of nailed it. When you see it, you just go ‘ooooh.’”
Cringe thinks that Microsoft is anything but “early” to the smartphone game, and that if Ballmer thinks otherwise he’s delusional:
I suppose if we’re talking geological time, then Ballmer’s right, Microsoft is on the cusp of the smartphone epoch, and the dinosaurs just went for a dip in the tar pits. But in a market where a three-month-old device needs to be checked for liver spots and signs of dementia, spotting the competition three-plus years and then coming up with something that almost meets the smartphone standards set in 2007 is not exactly being early. It’s certainly not “nailing” it — unless we’re talking about a coffin.
Boxee Box Ships
11. November 2010
D-Link is shipping the Boxee Box. The network Web sites will presumably block it, but it has Vudu, is going to get Netflix and Hulu Plus, and has a ton of other features.
Help a Technologizer Reader Digitize a 1938 Family Recording
10. November 2010
I realize that I’m fairly well-informed about technology. But to borrow a line from a favorite former boss of mine, what I don’t know could fill a warehouse. Fortunately, the combined wisdom of the mighty Technologizer community can answer virtually any tech question. Including this one, I hope.
Technologizer reader Chuck Mayper has a phonograph (78rpm, I assume–or is it a 45?) from June 1938. It’s a recording of a family event. He’d like to digitize it, of course–a job than can normally be done with something like an Ion USB turntable. But both sides of this record have “Start Here” notations which seem to tell the listener to place the needle on the inside edge, not the outside one.
NHL Makes Like Baseball, Befriending Boxes
10. November 2010
Gradually, live sports are coming to set-top boxes and game consoles. The latest is the National Hockey League, whose Gamecenter Live service for out-of-market games is now available on Playstation 3 and Roku.
The app is free for Roku users and costs $10 on the PS3, but it’s free to subscribers of Playstation Plus, Sony’s premium online service. The actual Gamecenter subscription costs $21 per month or $169 per year. (Weird. The NHL regular season ends in April and playoffs run into June, which is seven months from now. Unless I’m missing something, not sure why you’d pay a higher price for the entire year at once.)
NHL Gamecenter Live follows MLB.TV, which went to Roku and the PS3 earlier this year. Both sports streams are also available through Boxee and in web browsers.
Oakley’s New Gascans: 3D That Might Actually Be Good
10. November 2010
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When I heard that sports eyewear maker Oakley was going to start making 3D glasses, I thought to myself “That’s nice–I’ll bet they’re sticking generic 3D lenses in a set of stylish frames.” Wrong! The company’s new 3D Gascans are mostly about the quality of the optics. The company came up with its own technology for making high-quality 3D, curved lenses–the cheapo glasses you use at movies have really flat lenses. And in a demo Oakley showed to me, its lenses were capable of showing far crisper images than others.
Oakley’s lenses are for passive 3D system, including most movie-theater 3D. Most of the first wave of 3D HDTVs, as well as many 3D PC display and laptops, use active 3D–the kind with battery-powered glasses that flutter LCDs in each lens on and off. Oakley’s glasses won’t work with these devices. But when I spoke about the 3D Gascans with Oakley CEO Colin Baden, he told me that he thinks passive-3D–which involves a fancier TV but simpler glasses such as the Gascans–will dominate over the long run.
E-Ink Goes Color
10. November 2010
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E-Ink has announced its first color electronic-display technology. I love color as much as the next human being, but when I’ve used the Kindle and other E-Ink devices, I’ve only missed two colors: a really white white for the “paper,” and a really black black for the “ink.” It’s unclear to me whether the new Triton technology will help with either of these.
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12. November 2010
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